1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to application servers and more specifically relates to an apparatus and method for high availability identification and application installation in a computer application server.
2. Background Art
Computer systems typically include operating system software that controls the basic function of the computer, and one or more software application programs that run under the control of the operating system to perform desired tasks. As the capabilities of computer systems have increased, the application software programs designed for high performance computer systems have become extremely powerful. Computer systems often employ data and application servers that are connected over a network to provide data files and software application files to client machines. Additionally, software system maintenance costs have continued to rise because more powerful and complex programs and server environments take more time and expertise, and hence more money, to maintain.
Computer systems sometimes employ high availability (HA) technology to ensure data and resources of the computer system are always available. High-availability means availability despite planned outages for upgrades or unplanned outages caused by hardware or software failures. This technology achieves high data availability through fragmentation and replication of data across multiple servers. This technology typically relies on sending and receiving journal entries to maintain the data consistency of duplicate data across the servers.
The HA technology can be advantageously applied to an application server environment. An application server is a computer that is accessed over a network that holds software and data resources needed by one or more client computers. The client computers request data and application software from the application server when needed. HA technology in the application server will help ensure that the server resources are always available when needed by the client computers. Application servers that have HA capability in the prior art are very rigid, complex and difficult to configure. These systems typically require a system administrator with a complete knowledge of the HA technology to configure and install new applications onto the application server.
Without a simpler and more flexible way to configure and install HA functions in an application server, the computer industry will continue to suffer from the high cost and complexity of application server configuration and maintenance of HA functions.